


Sempiternal

by HelenaHusky



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Drug Use, Gay, Harry Styles - Freeform, Homosexual, Liam Payne - Freeform, Louis Tomlinson - Freeform, M/M, Niall Horan - Freeform, Niam - Freeform, Niam Horayne, Romance, Zayn Malik - Freeform, larry - Freeform, larry stylinson - Freeform, one direction - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-18
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:21:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 10,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26527429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HelenaHusky/pseuds/HelenaHusky
Summary: "They experience heaven. They experience hell. They are still children, and have already gambled away their future."Lists, plans, dates - Louis Tomlinson has everything under control. At least that applies to his professional life - he has good job prospects at a successful company, and everything else is supposedly going according to plan. But there is one thing that does not appear in any of his diaries: twenty-year-old Harry Styles, who is currently desperately trying to get his heroin addiction under control. More and more often, he sneaks between Louis' thoughts, which should always be with him when he has all kinds of professional difficulties.Fate plays into his hands when, by chance, he learns Harry's story - and with it all the things he will love about him later.______________________"A creeping longing was brewing between his thoughts. He was no longer able to cope with its power; yet he was so fed up with the hell in which he had to live. But he did not want to miss the liquid happiness in his veins."
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan/Liam Payne
Comments: 5
Kudos: 6





	1. Prologue

_Prologue_

**_Louis_ **

Time was on his side.

Even without much luck he would get to his appointment without any problems and in time. The fact that it had to take place at the other end of the city did not bother him. At least not as long as the promised success did not fail to materialise.

A glance at the clock had just shown him that there was still enough time to sit relaxed in his seat of the underground and wait for it to stop at the right station.

Most of the time, when he looked around in a wagon, all social classes were represented. He was only happy when he didn't have to sit next to some poor wretches who looked at him as if he were God himself every time he looked out the window in his suit and tie and sent an occasional message to a business contact.

Sitting in front of him was a young man about his age with a stack of newspapers on his lap. If he didn't look like a homeless man, he would have assumed he was a paperboy. On the other hand - what else could he be?

The train was terribly full as usual. He often had the feeling that he couldn't breathe. This city still stole his last nerve.

A few metres away, he could see among all the people in the train, a man who had his hair pulled tightly back. He only noticed him because his hair looked so horrible that he wanted to throw away his hair gel.

The boy in front of him looked out the window, lost in thought, and stroked a strand of the curly brown hair from his face, which looked as if he hadn't washed it for a long time.

The underground stopped at the next station, the boy stood up and reached for his worn-out backpack, which Louis hadn't even noticed yet. He rolled both eyes when he asked him to let him through. He was well aware that he couldn't have much money. Otherwise he wouldn't be walking around in those rags, which looked as if they were already half a century old.

After two more stops Louis turned his gaze to the left, and then he realised that he hadn't got out of the car at all. He had only started to distribute the newspapers, which meant that he was harassing the passengers by asking them to buy one of these strange copies. Most of them just shook their heads and paid no further attention to him.

When he arrived at his seat, he looked at him for a moment without saying a word. Finally he held out the remarkably large pile of newspapers to him and put his head on edge. "Would you be interested in..."

The boy interrupted himself as he shook his head without looking at him. "No, thanks."

Louis thought he could detect a nod from the corner of his eye. He turned away from him and went his way. And he was at peace again - or so he thought.

A moment later Louis heard a thud next to him that he couldn't identify at first. Finally he saw all those magazines lying on the floor and he realised that the boy had stumbled.

Blind rage rose in him. If the news department that had hired him had been looking for incompetent staff, they had struck a lucky blow in him.

Louis rolled both eyes as he struggled to pull himself up again, with great effort and between unnerved passengers - including himself. "I'm sorry," he murmured and began to put all his newspapers back on one pile, which was not easy in a moving underground.

A deep sigh pressed out of his chest as the next stop was announced. Louis was supposed to get off right here.

He got up from his seat, grabbed his bag and set off in expensive shoes to go through all his magazines. The strange boy looked at him from below with a stunned look. "Is this really necessary?"

He didn't answer his question literally, but just reached into his coat pocket and pulled out some change, which he snubbedly held out to him. "This should cover the damage nicely."

Now the paperboy was the one who sighed. He reached for a magazine and stretched it out to him. "At least take it with you."

Louis tore it out of his hand and wedged it under his arm before hurrying to the exit as the doors were about to close. He gave a deep sigh as he entered the floor of the underground station.

Damn, he thought, how he hated such people.

Louis quickly let the magazine disappear into his pocket so that no one would see him walking around with it.

At that time he hadn't even begun to suspect the importance this magazine would have in his life.


	2. Lines, Vines and Trying Times

**_Louis_ **

A groan, a deep sigh, a slight moan. He ran his hands through the freshly washed hair and ordered a glass of champagne. Louis was in high spirits - the appointment had gone very well, and so he was almost guaranteed the contract he was to land. You could probably imagine that it hadn't been easy - but he had managed it anyway. So far everything had gone well. In his opinion, he definitely deserved a small glass of champagne.

While he was digging for his phone in his bag, the newspaper he bought from the homeless boy in the underground caught his eye again. He did not know his name, so he decided to call him the homeless boy from now on. That described him best, because his homelessness couldn't have been more obvious.

Louis put the magazine on the table and decided to read it. It couldn't hurt to see what it said. After all, he had paid for it. So he was entitled to take a look inside, wasn't he?

After the first few pages, at the latest, it became unmistakably clear to him that this was a magazine for the homeless. Louis rolled his both eyes and took a sip of water. Why on earth did he carry this magazine around with him? And what was even worse, why was he reading it at all?

He asked himself this question quite often over the next five minutes, even though he should have known it long ago. It was interesting to him, very much so, but he did not want to admit it to himself. So he simply told himself that he didn't want to waste his money and read what he had spent it on. He could not deny that this had been the case. But he could deny everything else.

His heart almost stopped when he arrived in the middle of the booklet. Louis winked for a moment, took a sip of water and read the headline again. "Heroin destroyed my life."

Underneath, a picture of the boy from the underground. He recognised him clearly, the face was exactly the same.

_In the end I can only say that I ended up on the street because of heroin._

He raised both eyebrows. The boy had been a drug addict? Or was this impression only at first sight?

_Everything always starts somehow. With just 'one time', which is what it is supposed to be in the end. But may I tell you something? It never stops at that one time. It goes on and on. It never ends._

Louis shook his head in amazement. The caption told him that his name was Harry, and that a fortnight ago he had turned nineteen. A tender age for a heroin addict, it shot through his head as his eyes almost reattached themselves to the lines by themselves.

_Oh God, it hurt so much. The moment I realised that I couldn't help myself any more. But if I can't help myself, who can? Even though I'm living clean now and would give anything to be able to live a normal life, my past haunts me to my sleep. Anyone who even toyed with the idea of 'trying' heroin is a bloody stupid fool for wanting to do so to themselves._

Although he would not even deny this line of thought, he would not call these people bloody He knew enough young people his age who were experimenting with illegal substances. Louis himself was definitely not one of them.

_You should think very carefully about throwing your life away that way, because that's exactly what it is. To be numb and pay for it with your life._

He was right. In the end, this was exactly the insight that many people lacked when they started taking drugs. He himself had enough friends who put their health at risk so carelessly. The fact that he had never had the urge to do so was probably due to his parents' view of things. He had grown up very sheltered.

_Some people might wonder why I talk so much and why I was, or still am, an addict. But in retrospect, you're always smarter, aren't you? If I had been aware of the consequences then, I would never have touched a single needle. Not even once. I would not have even touched a cigarette!_

Louis sighed. Cigarettes. A legal introductory drug that probably never seemed to go out of fashion. He knew that, because he himself also had a box of the precious tobacco in his pocket now and then.

_I don't think I need to mention that I started smoking and drinking before I switched to harder drugs. It starts that way with everyone, doesn't it?_

_No one is a heroin addict from the beginning of their drug career. And I can confirm this from my own experience._

Louis shook his head and closed the magazine. He couldn't finish reading the report in one piece, it killed him to see that. Not because he was so touched by the fate of this homeless man, but because he knew full well that the same fate could befall many of his friends.

Perhaps even himself? Now that he knew how all this could end, the danger was perhaps less, but his friends had no idea of all the things that this Harry published in this article.

A deep breath and a sip of water later, he tried again to find his phone in the bag he had been carrying around for hours. But no matter how thoroughly he searched, no matter which compartments he opened, it remained missing. And that he slowly began to panic was probably needless to mention.

Louis waved a waiter to him and asked him for a telephone, which he immediately gave to him. That he knew his phone number by heart was his only good fortune.

Perhaps he had just put it in some compartment that he no longer knew anything about. But nothing happened. The area around him remained silent. His telephone remained disappeared.

Even more shocking was the fact that a male voice suddenly appeared on the other end of the line. "Yes?"

Louis raised both eyebrows. He recognised this voice immediately.

"Harry?"

"Yes?"

"You found my phone."

"No", he sounded like he was shaking his head. "You left it on the train, and I was gonna drop it off at the local lost property."

He raised both eyebrows. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

Louis sighed. "Well, now, you can give it back to me in person.“


	3. Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge

Harry

A deep sigh pushed its way out of Harry's chest as he arrived where he belonged: At a kind of catchment basin for people like him, who had neither house nor flat, and could not really afford anything of that kind due to their unemployment. In the meantime, however, he was well on the way to changing that by getting a job at an editorial office. Although he only delivered newspapers, a lot of things had gotten better - comparatively at least. Little by little, he learned to stand on his own two feet and leave his past behind.

"Harry?", he heard the voice of his best friend behind him. "Where have you been for so long?"

Another sigh escaped Harry's lungs as he shrugged both shoulders. Liam looked at him in bewilderment, but did not let go. "Come on," he urged, "We've been waiting for you for half an hour."

He raised both eyebrows. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yes".

"I was down under to sell newspapers," he finally gave in and threw the stack of papers impatiently on the table in front of him. It was their thing. Calling the underground 'down under'. It was a joke they had made some day and that never got old. "Some rich prick threw the whole pile on the floor, so I had to collect it, and consequently couldn't get off."  
A gloating giggle squeezed out of Liam's chest, "Then you ended up at the other end of town and somehow had to come back," he concluded, giggling.

Harry nodded. "Right. But that's not all."

"No?"

"No. That rich idiot, who must not have been much older than us, gave me fifty damn pounds."

Irritated, Liam shook his head. "I thought he knocked over your pile of newspapers."

"He did, too. "But afterwards, he slipped me the money and took a magazine."

Liam nodded. "Am I supposed to understand that?"

Shaking his head, Harry waved. "But that wasn't all."

His best friend raised both eyebrows. "No?"

"No. The guy lost his phone."

"So what?"

"He lost it on the underground, you idiot."

A mischievous grin crept across the face of the man in front of Harry. "Knowing you, I'm sure you've already made money out of it."

"No. But the thought had crossed my mind, of course."

"I see. Then why haven't you taken care of it yet?"

"You know me. I'm not the sort of guy to get involved in this kind of thing."

Liam pulled up both eyebrows. "May I remind you of why you're here?"

"Shut up," Harry hit him and rolled both his eyes. "I called the guy and arranged to meet him for later. He said he needed the phone badly and that he would of course meet me halfway for my honesty. Funny how he was suddenly so accommodating."

Liam shrugged both shoulders. "He's probably just glad you were kind enough to give him his phone back."

"I suppose so. Where's the rest?"

"You mean Niall and Zayn?"

He nodded.

"They're in the canteen, they were hungry."

His natural instinct forced his body to shake a little. "So am I, but I wouldn't touch the food there with pliers."

"Yeah, it's really disgusting," Liam agreed before he sat down on his bed and wondered why the hell Harry had called that guy when he had been so disrespectful to him.

That was the problem with people like that. They had no idea what was behind other people's stories, but still thought they had enough judgement to treat them from above.

Most of them - and Harry was even sure that he could say that all of them did - did not have that at all. Not even in the slightest.

Nevertheless, he insisted on doing justice in this way. Why on earth that was so important to him, he could not tell anyone. Maybe he just didn't want this young man, no matter how badly he had behaved towards him, to be without his phone when he needed it so badly. After all, his current situation was exactly the kind of result that came out of criminal activities of this kind.

And judging by the guy's appearance, he really needed the phone very badly for his job.

So with a sigh he set off for the agreed meeting place somewhere in Greenwich. This is the part of London where he would only go if there was absolutely no other way to go where he wanted to go. Everything there always seemed so terribly expensive, and that depressed him.

So Harry got off at North Greenwich tube station, left the tube station and made his way to the place where they were supposed to meet. It was probably easy to imagine that with Harry's poor knowledge of the place, it was hard to find.

He was only lucky because he was not particularly shy and had no problem asking other passers-by for directions. Most of them also knew exactly where he had to go, so he found the road quickly enough to get there before Louis did.

But the more or less aggressive sound of Shadow Moses supposedly shortened the waiting time a lot. When the young man with the brown hair and the expensive looking jacket finally tapped him on the shoulder, he recognized him immediately.

The man who actually owed Harry a ticket across half of London.

"Harry," he said again, and smiled at him so kindly that he shook his head irritated. He had treated him like the scum of the earth after all.

"How do you even know my name," Harry muttered as he reached for the phone in his coat pocket, taking care not to look too clumsy.

Louis cleared his throat. "I read the article in the magazine."

Harry paused for a moment, then picked up the phone again. "To be honest, I didn't expect you to take a look inside."

A brief smile crept up on his fine face as he ran his fingers through his hair, presumably groomed with all kinds of products. "Shall we take a walk?"

Now he didn't understand a thing anymore - what the hell did this man want from him? All he wanted was his phone back, and he had complied with that request. But why the hell did he want to go for a walk with him now?


	4. Antivist

**Harry**

"I read your report," Louis said to him, "in the paper you sold me."

Harry swallowed. He nodded and thoughtfully put one leg in front of the other. "I do not want your pity. I didn't want it this morning, and I don't want it now."

Louis shook his head vigorously, though he could see that Harry did not pay any attention to him. "I don't pity you."

A forceful nod. "Good."

Harry's lack of words was already pushing Louis to the brink of patience. How could he have a decent conversation with him like that? Was that even possible?

"May I ask you something?"

Harry looked at him, for the first time in this conversation. "Sure."

He wondered what this man actually wanted from him - he had treated him like an inferior piece of dirt, and now - only a few hours later - he urgently wanted to talk to him because he had learned his story?

Maybe that had nothing to do with pity, he agreed with him. But it did have something to do with a guilty conscience, but certainly not with a sincere apology.

He felt guilty because he had further humiliated someone with a shitty past. Maybe he was afraid of getting into trouble because of it, who knows. That was what bothered Harry the most. All that fuss, he was very sorry for it since he had read his story - of course it was honest. But it had nothing to do with the fact that he was really sorry. It did not come from the heart.

Harry was still waiting for the question that Louis actually wanted to ask him. The fact that he was obviously reluctant to say it only underlined Harry's anger.

"Listen to me," he finally said, "I can guess what you want to ask me. Poor boy, how could you have fallen so low? But shall I tell you something?"

Louis looked at him so confused at first, that even Harry began to hesitate. Eventually, however, he made up his mind to be honest. "Not everyone has rich parents and the opportunity to study some dirt just to call themselves something better. Some people just grow up in modest circumstances, for some people even that is an understatement. I have known people like you all my life. You are born with everything in your cradle and you feel as if you are something better and we are the scum of earth."

Louis shook his head in irritation. He had no idea what else he could have said.

"What makes you think my parents are rich?"

Though they had been, he seriously wondered how Harry had known.

"Look at you," he exclaimed and stopped for a moment. "You wear these expensive suits, you've achieved considerably more than the average at your age, and then you seriously want to know how the rest of us know that your parents have a lot of money?"

A sigh came from his chest: "Even though you're right about this, it doesn't mean I didn't have to make an effort."

Harry raised both hands defensively. "I never said that," he clarified, "I merely said that you had the best basic prerequisites for a successful career. You did not have to fight for everything yourself."

"Neither did you."

A more or less contemptuous sound squeezed from Harry's chest. "You have no idea."

Now Louis was the one who threw a mocking laugh at him. "Are you trying to tell me your parents didn't care about your education at all?"

Harry's eyes twisted into two slits that patterned Louis as if they could jump at his throat at any moment. "I have no parents."

Louis swallowed. It had never been difficult for him to put his foot in his mouth, but today was his lucky day in that respect.

"Oh," he goes, "I'm sorry."

"You're not," it promptly came back, "If you were, you would have spoken to me differently this morning. You would not have treated me from the start like someone from the lower classes - even if I belong there for you - but like a normal English citizen who has as much right to a seat on the tube as you do."

Louis wanted to start a new sentence, but Harry interrupted him: "Your money won't change that, nor your status in any companies that are proud of you because your parents have a lot of money."

Of course, he was aware that what he was saying wasn't entirely fair. He knew that it was hard to study, even with given starting capital. At that moment he did not behave much better than Louis did that morning.

He sighed. "Maybe what I am saying is not fair. That may be. But you know what really pisses me off?"

Louis shook his head.

"That just because of that article in the magazine, you realized you made a mistake. That you never even thought about apologising to me on your own. So you can't be too serious."

Louis raised both arms defensively. "That's not true."

"Then what is it?"

"Wrong. I'm really sorry. I'm have-"

He interrupted himself when he saw Harry's eyebrows raised. The many tattoos on his body, the long hair, the way he dressed - maybe it was just his looks that had disturbed Louis a bit that morning.

"Listen," Harry said at one point, "I don't think this conversation is going anywhere."

Louis wanted to contradict him, but then realised that there was no real point. So he reached into his pocket and handed his counterpart a piece of bluish cardboard.

"In case you change your mind," he finally said and took a step back.

"Why on earth would I do that?"

Louis shrugged both shoulders. "I do not know. Maybe sooner or later you'll realise that your story's stuck in my head."

A scornful laugh squeezed from Harry's chest as he inserted the card. "If you say so."

With these words, he waved at him and, step by step, moved away from him and made his way to the underground station. That this was not the notorious 'fine English manner', he knew. But he had almost taken this feigned sympathy as a personal insult.

Back at home, he found no one in his room. The boys were in the lounge, playing cards or watching TV, talking or just sitting in a corner, exhausted and apathetic. For Harry it wasn't hard to see that some of them were already wasted again.

Prickling desire rose up in him. Just the knowledge that he could have gotten his hands on heroin at any moment drove him crazy. He had grown up here, he knew every corner of the city, and consequently the drug scene. Whether that was good or bad was a matter for the eye of the beholder. Sanity, however, appealed to him to let the whole thing go. After all, he had already gone months without heroin, without relapsing.

"What did the guy say?" Liam wanted to know when Harry dropped onto the sofa next to him. He shrugged both shoulders.

"I don't know. He said he couldn't get my story out of his head."

Liam's eyes got bigger. "How did he know it?"

"From the magazine he bought this morning," Harry muttered, brushing a strand of shoulder-length hair from his face. "He wanted to apologise, and I didn't want his pretended sympathy. It's as simple as that."

Liam shook his head. "Knowing you, you didn't tell him that very nicely."

"What's the point? The guy owes me a ticket across half of London."

Liam couldn't help but laugh. "Maybe that's why you should get together with him again."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello guys!  
> Thank you so much for checking out "Sempiternal"!  
> I hope you are enjoying reading and I am looking forward to hearing what you're thinking :)
> 
> All the love  
> Helena xxx


	5. Insomnia

**_Harry_ **

He opened his eyes in total darkness. It was silent. All he could hear was Liam's faint breath, about five metres away from him. He was hot and his breath was faster than usual. Burning desire rose up in his brain and images of that last summer chased through his head.

He sat up, ran both hands over the hot face and gave a deep sigh.

It was just like every night.

God, he missed this stuff so much. The sweet flickering of his eyes, turning a blind eye to the world, the calm twilight, the slight nausea. Methadone didn't even come close to this effect - and that was exactly the point that bothered him.

In the morning he was the first one to go to the methadone clinic two streets away to pick up his daily dose with the signature of his carers, and yet he was the last one to leave. He wanted to talk to some old acquaintances and get a deep insight into the feeling of the past. Many of his friends were no longer alive.

His breath went so fast that he had the feeling that something was pressing on his chest. He opened the window, sat down on the window sill and lit a cigarette. How he hated these nightly thrusts.

**_Louis_ **

He had never cared. He would have let drug addicts die miserably from their addiction - he would not have cared. In his opinion, these people were to blame for all their problems themselves. Nobody forced them to drop this stuff over and over again - or so he thought.

Late at night, while Harry was smoking his cigarette, Louis was sitting in his bedroom with a brand new MacBook, trying to find out as much about heroin as possible. He didn't know exactly why he was doing this.

In his mind's eye he only saw a pair of green eyes and two arms full of tattoos.

He yawned softly, looked at the screen of his TV for a moment, and then turned back to the website he had been surfing for half an hour. Before that he had looked at field reports and medical basics.

He felt sorry for the young man, whom he had actually only met by an unfortunate coincidence.

It was the first time. Never before had he been really interested in other people, especially poor drug addicts who had no home and grew up in some institution that was responsible for just such cases.

But that evening he tried to understand Harry's life so far.

**_Harry_ **

It's only in your head, he kept saying to himself. The desire is only in your head. It's not real.

While he was smoking the last remnant of his second cigarette, he turned this strange guy's card in his hand and thought about what Liam had told him.

Maybe he should call him up for the very reason that he still owed him a ticket across half of London.

Of course, it had only been a joke, but that wasn't the point at all. It was about the basic idea of actually calling the guy. He couldn't get this morning's conversation out of his head, even if he tried to ignore it.

Even if he had done it in a damned shitty way, he was the first person in a few years who had shown him that he wasn't completely invisible. At least the first stranger.

Harry was generally uncomfortable in large crowds. He felt anonymous and invisible, as if he wasn't even here. As if he had no value in this world. That suddenly became clear to him.

And this boy (he refused to call him a man) had managed to make him think about this assumption.

Finally he had noticed him, albeit in a rather condescending way, at least at first.

Lost in thought, Harry read the number on the paper over and over again, until he thought he knew it almost by heart.

He put the card back into his jacket pocket and pulled the jacket tight. London could be so infinitely cold at this time of day, even if you're just sitting by the window to smoke a few cigarettes.

He heard a tired moaning behind him and glanced through the room, which was lit only by the light of distant street lamps. In fact, in front of the window was only the garden of this strange institution, where - never, and under no circumstances - one was allowed to smoke.

Liam tiredly rubbed his eyes and looked at Harry so irritated that he had to giggle. "What the hell are you doing?"

Harry shrugged both shoulders and took another puff from his cigarette. "I couldn't sleep."

"You can never sleep."

"Congratulations, Sherlock."

Liam sighed, got up and sat on the other side of the windowsill.

Without comment, Harry handed him the pack of cigarettes that they weren't really allowed to have. Finally Liam opened the second side of the window and asked Harry for a lighter.

And in that moment, something became very clear to Harry: Only because it was just in his head, doesn't make it less real.

**_Louis_ **

Although he tried to sleep, the whole thing didn't really work out. The TV was still on, and it actually calmed him down every time he couldn't sleep, but that day it didn't want to work either.

He got up, drank a glass of water, and went back to bed. With both hands he ran over his face, tilted a window, closed it again, turned off the TV and turned it on again. Frustrated, he pulled up his blanket and jumped out of bed.

Why couldn't he stop thinking about that boy? He was just a heroin addict who did not know how to get his life together.

**_Harry_ **

Liam looked at Harry questioningly. "Have you thought about what you're gonna do when you get out of here?"

He shrugged both shoulders. "I don't think it's going to happen very quickly."

Liam uttered a deep sigh. "I'd like to catch up on my studies."

A smile flitted across Harry's face. "You have the facilities."

Lost in thought, Liam looked up at the night sky, clouded by the city lights. He pulled on his cigarette and turned his gaze to the floor.

Harry knew what he was thinking. Liam had never been good at taking chances. His mind was putting obstacles in his path that he could not remove on his own. Otherwise he wouldn't be here - and they both knew that.

"Have you thought about calling this guy back?"

Harry shook his head. "I don't know."

A bitter laugh came out of his chest. "I think I'm gonna need a dose of methadone first."

Liam shook his head. "Have you really never thought about it?"

"Thought about what?"

"Thought about what you wanted to do after all of this is over."

Harry shook his head. "It's not gonna happen any time soon."

And again, the image of that rich prick rushed into his mind, and he wondered why the hell he couldn't get it out of his head.


	6. High

**Louis**

It was still early in the morning when his phone rang. He had still been asleep, because - without wanting to admit it - he had been busy with Harry's more or less overcome addiction until late in the night. Why exactly he suddenly felt such a burning interest flare up in him, he couldn't explain himself. He didn't even know if he wanted to know.

A second ringing, a third and finally a fourth. He gave an unnerved sigh, pushed back his blanket and reached for his telephone. "What?", he hissed into the speaker without having had a look at the display beforehand. He was still far too confused to pay attention to such seemingly minor details. After all, he had only been awake for half a minute - so he was forgiven.

" Well, someone's in a good mood today," he heard a familiar voice grumbling into the telephone. Immediately he was wide awake. Harry was absolutely the last person he expected to hear. Some annoying customer waiting for a call back, his boss, his parents - someone who wanted to get on his nerves so early in the morning. But Harry? Frankly, he never expected to be contacted by him again.

"Sorry", he apologised, sighed and opened a window. "You're awfully early."

"Did I wake you up?"

Louis shrugged both shoulders. "To tell you the truth..."

"I'm not really interested," Harry calmly tweeted the into phone.

Rolling both eyes, Louis gave a deep sigh. "Why did you call?"

**Harry**

He held the key to his room in his left hand while sitting on the steps to his home - or whatever you want to call it. In the other hand he held a cigarette. "I want to show you something."

He could literally see Louis raising both eyebrows. At least he could imagine it pretty well at that moment. He waited patiently for his answer, looked at the tattoos on his own arms and took a deep puff from his cigarette.

Louis sounded surprised when he answered. "What do you want to show me?"

"Let me put it this way," Harry continued, trying to stretch his answer as long as possible. For some reason, he liked getting on Louis' nerves. "I want to show you some places I used to spend a lot of time at in the past."

He knew that Louis had a tight schedule and he also knew that he probably had better things to do than to be guided through London's drug scene by a well-informed ex-junkie.

For a moment he had to laugh at the irony in his own thoughts, then he listened carefully to what Louis had to say. He thought he could hear how he put on a shirt. Involuntarily he had to imagine this preppy guy doing it. A giggle came out of his chest.

He heard a yawn on the other line and knew full well that Louis had no answer.

"What are you thinking?"

**Louis**

Although he wasn't sure if he wanted to see it at all, he nodded. He completely forgot that Harry could not see him. "I wouldn't mind."

"I wouldn't mind," Harry repeated, and for a moment Louis wondered if he'd been smoking something. From the first word he spoke, he sounded so hilariously amused that Louis had to pull himself together not to ask or even comment.

"What time would you have thought of?" he inquired, to scare the thoughts away. Harry did not answer immediately.

"In one hour at Piccadilly Circus," he finally replied, and he heard him exhaling loudly. Probably he was smoking, but certainly not what one would expect from a former junkie at first - after all, he could hear from the acoustics in the background that he was sitting on a public street. So it's best not to get caught with drugs.

"In one hour?" Louis repeated irritatedly. "That's pretty early."

"I've been up for two hours," Harry replied, "I think you'll be able to make it to Piccadilly Circus in an hour."

Louis moaned. "You're killing me."

"And you owe me a ticket across London. Here we go."

**Harry**

Of course his cigarette had not only contained tobacco. Half an hour ago he had felt so guilty about it that he had told Liam. He had just put his head in both hands and asked him if he had gone crazy - smoking marihuana while the carers could walk in at any moment.

But by now, Harry found his slip-up quite amusing.

So funny that he giggled incessantly. He couldn't stop while his eyes happened to close so much that they were always half shut. They suddenly felt incredibly heavy.

But he still found it funny.

For some reason he couldn't stop grinning.

He got up, dizziness crept so far up inside him that he had to hold on to the railing of the stairs for a moment. That too amused him so much that he squeezed both eyes together and giggled inside himself.

Finally he went back inside, his face red from all the laughter. When he came back into the room, Liam was just about to tidy up. A glance at the clock indicated to him that the caretakers should have been there long ago. That's why he had originally sat outside.

Liam shook his head when he saw Harry standing in the doorway. Although he could still walk and talk normally - as long as he didn't laugh - the high he was on could be clearly seen. A grass intoxication was completely different from an alcohol intoxication in most respects.

Liam was just glad that the effects of marihuana, or whatever it was he had smoked, never lasted very long.

"Sit down on your bed," mumbled Liam, "I'll get you a glass of water."

Harry did as he was told and felt headaches and nausea creeping up inside him. He was dizzy and wished he had never taken that stuff. He should be back on his feet in an hour, though.

"If anyone sees you, you're out," Liam hissed, "You've already received two warnings."

Harry shrugged both shoulders. At that moment, he was completely disinterested.

He couldn't care less.

"Were you at the methadone clinic this morning?"

"Sure," Harry replied, closing his eyes and deciding to go to sleep. Once his eyes were open, the dizziness took over. If he closed his eyes, he drifted off, half asleep, until the substance lost its effect.

He had no idea what exactly he had been smoking - he had only been told that it was a mixture of weed and some other herbs. He hadn't seen such strong stuff in a long time, that' s for sure.

**Louis**

When Harry - almost half an hour late - arrived at the agreed meeting place, he looked as if he hadn't slept at all for two days.

Louis raised both eyebrows at this sight and wondered if there was any truth in his suspicion of just now.

Despite everything, Harry smiled tiredly at him, and although he would not admit it, Louis thought he was extremely handsome. The kind of handsome he had always wanted to be.


	7. Sad, beautiful tragic

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi there!  
> Thank you all so much for reading "Sempiternal". I hope you guys enjoy reading :)  
> Let me know what you think in the comment section below :)  
> I hope you're having a nice day - I am sitting in university right now and I am pretty bored.
> 
> All the love,  
> Helena xxx

**Harry**

Of course, he knew that Louis should have other things to do - and of course he knew that these were far more important than a trip to London's drug scene, where hardly any tourist would involuntarily get lost.

The first stop here was a very ominous neighbourhood in Louis' eyes, where lightly dressed women with apathetic looks, unwashed hair and cigarettes in their hands stood by the road, probably waiting for a car to pass by in which an interested client was sitting. Harry told him that almost all his female friends had worked here in the past to be able to afford their drugs.

Most of them had been heroin addicts, he said, and heroin was expensive. "I remember a girl who was found dead in a station restroom after almost two years of addiction."

Louis raised both eyebrows and wrapped both arms anxiously around the petite body. "Can the body really be destroyed like this within two years?"

Harry shook his head. "It was probably less the heroin itself that killed her than her own thoughts."

Louis understood and nodded. He would have loved to turn on his heel and ask Harry to take him back to Piccadilly Circus. There were exactly two reasons why he couldn't: one was that he really wanted to prove to Harry that he was serious about his sympathy, and the other was that he - quite simply - did not want to be perceived as an unmanly coward.

"We often sat here", Harry pointed to a run-down side street in which several now useless wooden boxes were standing. Probably the entrance to the backyard of some dirty shop, of which Louis didn't want to know what was going on in it.

Harry approached the boxes, nudged one of them with his foot and watched it slide back a few inches. The old longing rose up in him again.

He became very hot and despite the cool autumn air he had to stand still for a moment to make it easier for him to breathe. Then he remembered the small plastic bag with dried marijuana weed in his pockets, and he would have loved to mix it with his tobacco and enjoy the carefreeness for a moment.Only it was far from being the same feeling that he missed so much - that warmth that flowed through his body when he made the first fix of the day, that peace and calmness he felt.

Only it was far from being the same feeling that he missed so much - that warmth that flowed through his body when he sat down for the first push of the day, that peace and quiet he felt.

He repressed the unpleasant side effects, to put it nicely, to such an extent that they no longer found room in his head. "And what were you doing here?", Louis asked, while sitting down on one of the boxes next to Harry.

He shrugged both shoulders, thought about it for a moment and finally gave such a heavy sigh that Louis felt it almost sounded longing.

**Louis**

He watched Harry as he pulled his wallet out of his backpack. When he opened the change box, Louis smelled an unfamiliar but so suspicious odor that he wanted to take the small bag in his hand away from Harry immediately. However, he was neither his father, nor the police, nor any doctor at the rehab centre - he could not tell him what to do or not to do.

Without comment, the brown-haired boy pulled cigarette tobacco and papes from his pocket opposite him, with which Louis could never have rolled a cigarette. He watched him spread his strange substance - of which Louis actually had no idea what it was - on the tobacco in the pape and began to clear his throat hoarsely. "Harry?"

"Huh?"

"What are you doing?

The younger one shrugged both shoulders and licked the edge of the paper to close it better. Like the back of an envelope, Louis thought and waited for an answer, which Harry felt he owed him.

"You see," he returned and provocatively held the joint under his nose.

Louis rolled both eyes, unnerved. "You're not going to smoke that here, are you?"

Harry interrupted him without actually saying anything. He just hummed a vague 'why not' and looked for his lighter, which - as always when he needed it urgently - was lying at the bottom of his rucksack.

In his mind, Louis wandered back to this morning when he had already suspected that Harry had been under the influence of some kind of substance he knew nothing about. So now it turned out that he might have been right - with the difference that he now knew that he still used drugs occasionally. At least now he could say that with certainty.

Neither the old familiar feeling of disgust, nor feelings of abhorrence or even hatred rose in him. On the contrary, the sight of Harry sitting there next to him with a joint in his hand, waiting for the effects to kick in and release him from reality, aroused deep pity in him. What had happened to this boy to make him sink so low?

It had never occurred to Louis to touch any drugs. It did not matter how bad his inner condition had been. He had never even thought about solving his problems in such a way.

He had never been one of those who had deliberately got drunk. Most of his intoxications had been an absolute mistake and he regretted them at the latest when two hours later he was hanging over the toilet with nauseous dizziness and at the bitter end of a booze-up he had to find out that he had drunk a bit too much.

"Would you like to have a go?" Harry grinned at him and Louis wondered whether he expected a serious answer from him.

He just shook his head and Harry shrugged both shoulders, assuring him that he didn't know what he was missing, and took another puff. It was not long before Louis noticed a slight change in Harry's temper.

At least it had been a slight change until he started giggling for no reason and making fun of Louis' trousers, because they probably cost more than Harry could ever have paid for a flat.

Finally, he jumped up on those skinny legs in a good mood and, grinning broadly and with heavy eyes, extended a hand to Louis. "Now let's move on."

A deep sigh pressed from Louis' chest. Frankly, he was no longer sure he wanted to see the rest, when Harry had already needed a joint to bear the memories. At least he had the feeling that his intention was not to think about earlier times between these houses.

Harry had met two former friends on the way back. A young couple, both full of heroin - his gaze had suddenly gone absolutely frozen, he had given them both a fleeting hug and asked them how they were doing.

They had replied that they had now completed their third withdrawal.

 _Oh_ , Harry had said, and said goodbye with such a trodden smile on his lips, that Louis no longer had to wonder whether it wouldn't have been better never to come here.

**Harry**

His eyes were heavy, and after he had stopped laughing, his eyes had become even heavier, and by now he was plagued by fatigue that he could hardly fight down. Again and again he held out his hand for yawning and stopped talking. He showed Louis all the different places where he had spent his time in the past: in front of shops, close to some train stations, which everyone knew were considered to be hotbeds of drug trafficking.

Station toilets, or the toilets of some fast-food chains in the station building itself, had often been used for secretly shooting heroin. Not without complaining about their lack of cleanliness, Harry led Louis back out of the building, across the street and took off his sunglasses for a moment. Only now could Louis see that his eyes were closed further than usual - reddish in colour underneath.

"May I ask you something?" he finally said, looking at Louis so deadly serious that there seemed to be hardly anything left of the drugged young man Harry had been an hour ago. Louis nodded.

"Do you still feel the same hypocritical pity you felt two hours ago?"

Louis shook his head. "No. I feel other pity. The kind of pity you feel towards those you like. And that's why - because I like you - I wanna give you my hand and pull you out of there."


	8. Nobody's Home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys,  
> I hope you are all dealing well with the Corona crisis!  
> What do you think of the new chapter? How do you think the situation will develop?
> 
> Thanks in advance and stay healthy  
> Helena xxx

**Harry**

It was late in the evening when he entered his room and asked Liam what time it was. He looked up from his book, which he had by now finished reading almost completely, and sighed up. "The carers have already asked for you twice. They'll kick you out if you carry on like this. Where the hell have you been?"

Now Harry was the one who gave a deep sigh. "I told you about that guy I returned his phone to, right?"

Liam nodded.

"I went for a walk with him."

"A walk?"

Harry nodded, opened a window and lit a cigarette.

Then Liam raised both eyebrows suggestively and whistled through his teeth. "Is there anything going on?"

"Shut up," Harry snapped at him, "You know very well I only slept with men because I needed the money."

"Sorry," Liam raised both hands defensively. "It was just a question."

"One superfluous question," hissed Harry, "I'm not gay."

"Whatever you say. Would you like to watch a film? Niall came looking for you, but you weren't here."

He just shrugged both shoulders, not a hint of a literal answer. To him, Liam's remark - even if it was just a bad joke - had been a kind of flashback. All the memories he had so laboriously repressed, all the things he had had to do to pay for his heroin.

His body shook with disgust, he took a deep puff from his cigarette and emitted a trembling sigh. He didn't even notice that Liam had stepped beside him to the window and carefully tried to put a hand on his shoulder.

Harry flinched and gave him a startled look.

"Are you all right?"

He did not react immediately. In fact, he didn't react at all until Liam repeated his question.

Then he nodded.

"Listen," Liam said, "I'm sorry if you were upset earlier. I didn't mean to..."

"It's okay," Harry cut him off, forced himself to grin and pulled his cigarette. "Don't worry about it. Didn't you want to watch a film?"

**Louis**

Even if he didn't really want to admit it to himself - he liked him. He even liked him very much. He felt something like gentle affection for him, he felt compassion and the need to help him. He didn't know exactly how he was going to do that - but he vowed to himself and the rest of the world not to let Harry just wither away. And he would, if he lived on like this.

He cared about Harry, even if he hated to admit it. He was the dregs of society, people gossiped about people like that, nobody would voluntarily make friends with people like that. He was one of those young people that parents warned their children about - and now?

Now Louis, of all people, was the one who wanted to take care of the boy. Why?

He had never had any understanding for this kind of person. In his eyes they had always been to blame for their misery, for him they had simply been too lazy to change anything about their situation.

He had not guessed how wrong he had been about that. Now that he knew Harry's story better, he knew that an addiction was an addiction. An addiction could not be eliminated overnight - It is hard work to live a life free of addiction.

Once you are caught in this spiral, you struggle to get out for a lifetime.

All these things were now clear to him. And he was terribly sorry to have judged and treated these people so badly over all these years.

So he decided to leave Harry a message. To ask him if he would like to have dinner with him tomorrow, maybe have a drink afterwards. He wanted to make up for all the harm he had done over the years. And he wanted to help him get his mind off things.

**Harry**

The film that Niall had chosen was a not particularly exciting, predictable horror film, where in every scene it was clear from the beginning what was going to happen. Actually, Harry would have had to be under the influence of drugs to be able to bear it. But the high of the afternoon was long gone, and if he would show up here in any way intoxicated - if only by alcohol - he would be homeless. So that meant for him to have to pull himself together. At least for the time he had to spend here. For as little time as possible.

He longed for the warmth of heroin, the carefree feeling of intoxication. He missed it even at night, when his exhausted body actually wanted to recover. He missed his old life, in which he had been able to do drugs all day long with friends from the drug scene without anyone bothering him.

The film was almost over when a message arrived on his now rather battered phone. He sighed briefly and took a look at the display. The message was from Louis - he wanted to know whether he had time and desire to have dinner with him tomorrow evening. Then he would invite him for a few beers in some pub that Harry didn't know.

Beer was always a good idea, he thought, and accepted without further hesitation. After all, what could happen? It wasn't reprehensible to go out for dinner with a person he knew - he wouldn't go as far as calling him a friend - and then go to a bar - was it?

According to the caretakers in this hole, it was very much so. But for Harry, it was no big deal. He had already had quite different experiences.


	9. The Lonely

**Harry**

He felt out of place as he waited for Louis with a black hood on his head. Of course, Louis had chosen a restaurant which was so noble that Harry estimated a meal more expensive than the monthly rent of the average citizen.

He didn't know what he had expected - but certainly not an address like this, where it was obvious which social class was dining here: Prosecutors, high-level businessmen - people who had made it in their lives, who had enough money to spend more on a single meal than others spend monthly on their rented accommodation.

He only took the headphones out of his ears when Louis tapped him with a grin on his face. He didn't look down on him contemptuously, didn't ask him why he wasn't dressed properly - he just smiled at him and wanted to know how he was doing.

Harry laughed and Louis asked him if he was drunk.

"Of course not."

Louis sighed, but did not forget to keep a smile on his face. "Let's go inside," he said, "It's starting to rain."

Harry was quite astonished when Louis led him to their table - he was standing on the edge, a bit secluded, with a perfect view of the rest of the room. But Harry showed little interest to that when he noticed the glazed wall to his left. It gave a perfect view of the city below. It was like a window into the lives of other people.

Harry had always liked to observe others - in the underground, on the street, even in the sanctuary for failed existences, which he now had to call his home.

"Red or white?", the unfamiliar voice of a waiter tore him away from his petty thoughts - but even this term seemed inappropriate for the young man. Waiter. This man was far too nobly dressed - suit, bow tie, black patent leather shoes - to be able to call him a mere waiter.

Harry looked at Louis, looking for help - what the hell was this man talking about? Red or white?

Louis formed the word wine with his lips and Harry understood. He just shrugged both shoulders and wondered when he had last drunk good wine. That must have been quite a while ago.

"Both", Louis decided, to end the embarrassing silence. "You don't always have to choose."

The waiter nodded and gave them both a lighthearted smile. As he took a few steps back, Harry looked at Louis in bewilderment. "If we empty two bottles of wine, that's one for each of us. I don't know what drinking habits you have, but..."

"Nonsense," Louis waved off and grinned."You don't usually mind that either."

He rolled both eyes. "That's something else entirely."

Louis shrugged and glanced across the room. "Nobody drinks all these bottles."

"Then why order them?"

"Because it's proper."

Harry shook his head in disbelief. Never in his life would he think of paying for wine he didn't even want to drink in the end - who the hell wastes money like that?

**Louis**

His plan was to show Harry his world. He had gained insights into Harry's life, now he wanted to turn the tables. He wanted him to see that things could go very differently, and that he was welcome at any time - even if Louis still didn't understand what it was that attracted him to this boy.

His past would probably scare most people away, his looks weren't much different, and as for where he lived - he had never been there before, but according to Harry's accounts it was probably some kind of psychiatric commune where young men and women his age learned to get their lives back on track.

That Harry was still taking drugs and drinking - not even that bothered him. It might have made him worry - worry about someone he didn't even know - but it didn't scare him off.

And that was the crucial point that set Harry apart from the other people in lower society: he meant something to him, he had value for him. And it didn't bother him, even though he probably never would have thought of being attracted to such a person before this acquaintance.

**Harry**

They talked for a long time. About everything - their friends and families, their childhood and about the things they had planned for the future. Louis' plans were a lot brighter than Harry's: while his plans consisted simply of moving out of this supervised flat-sharing community, which he said was a 'bloody hellhole', Louis had bigger plans for himself; he wanted to move up in the company where he worked, to make his parents and himself proud, to prove to himself that he had enough potential for a successful career.

Harry envied Louis for the things that lay ahead of him. While he was hardly - in no way - to be envied, Louis had the best prospects of a life with lots of money, maybe even a family and a big house some day - even though he lived in the middle of this big city.

"Are you all right?" Louis asked after a while when Harry had not made a sound.

He just shrugged both shoulders and put on a weak smile. "Of course I am."

"You're suddenly so quiet..."

"I'm just tired."

"Would you like to go home?"

Harry shook his head. He wasn't tired, of course, he just realised he could never - in fact never - be as successful as Louis. He would struggle with this addiction for the rest of his life, die at some point just as alone as he was at the moment, and continue to wait for someone to serve him the chance to get better on a golden plate. And he knew full well that this would never happen.

These things happened in fairy tales, but not in real life. And they certainly did not happen to drug-addicted young people who could not even manage not to mix methadone with other drugs.

Then he looked at Louis and put his cutlery aside. "Shall we go for a drink?"

The older one nodded. "If you want to."

After Louis had settled the bill - Harry didn't want to know how many pounds it was - they stood up somewhat staggered, leaving only half a bottle of wine on the table. Neither of them would have been able to drive a car any more, so they were both happy to be around the London Underground.

Harry was convinced that it was better not to mention that he had lost his driving licence half a year ago because of driving under the influence of heroin. In addition, the officers had found three more grams under the passenger seat, as well as a spoon, lighter, belt and syringe - it had all been like a bad movie. When Harry thought about it today, he felt nothing but shame and deep hatred towards himself.

Of course, he had been given a charge - violation of the narcotics law, driving under the influence of hard drugs. And if he hadn't agreed to move into this flat-sharing community back then, they would have put him in jail. After all, it wasn't the first time he had been caught with drugs in his possession.

He sighed and put both hands in the pockets of his black hooded jacket. They headed for a bar that was known to both of them. Harry probably spent more time there than Louis, despite an acute shortage of money, but they sat down at the bar and continued their conversation.

Louis told him about his friends, who were all at least as rich as he was. Harry wondered why he hadn't been blessed with rich parents; why on earth did he, out of all people in this god damn world, have two alcohol addicted parents? He could have grown up wealthy too, that would have made things a lot easier. But he knew very well that no one could say that he had ever been lucky with his family or any of the other factors that had shaped his childhood.

Then Louis looked at him, visibly drunk, and smiled. He put one hand on Harry's and asked him again if he was all right.

Harry just nodded, "Can we go outside for a moment? I'd like to smoke a cigarette."

He offered Louis one, which he - to his own surprise - accepted, but he dropped it twice before he could finally light it. They talked for a bit, and Harry observed the people around them. They were all at least as drunk as Louis and him.

While exhaling the smoke, Harry leaned against the wall and watched Louis look to the street. Harry looked at him for a moment.

Why couldn’t he be like that? Ambitious, handsome, a bit annoying but still successful?

Louis was the person Harry had always wanted to be. The difference clearly was that Louis had his life on track and Harry didn’t - which was only one of a million reasons Harry had to wonder why Louis was even here, spending time with a 20-year-old drug addict.

Louis turned his head in Harry’s direction. Finally, he turn to him.

He didn't know what was happening when he suddenly started to grin and swayingly approached him. "You look pretty tonight."

Harry blushed.  
Had Louis just called him … _pretty_?

Louis had to laugh at Harry’s reaction as he stumbled over his own legs; Harry caught him and grinned.

Then Louis put one hand on Harry's cheek and their lips touched each other.


End file.
